Abstract
Due to fact the that Rayleigh waves are attributed to a kind of natural vibration of a surface layer, their nature can be understood by vibration experiments using a shaking table or by vibration mode analysis of a layer of finite length. This has been confirmed experimentally, analytically and numerically. In the limiting case, where the wave length approaches infinity, the wave motion is found to be reduced to shear vibration and longitudinal vibration of the layer.
